


We'll Never Satisfy (The Hungry Ghost)

by stilinskis



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Also Werewolves, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Basically Creeper Pack, Creeper Derek, F/F, F/M, Hale Family Feels, M/M, On An Actual Deserted Island, Pack Feels, Scott is a Literal Puppy, Slow Build, Stranded
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-28 20:53:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilinskis/pseuds/stilinskis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The raft is useless, the island is abandoned, Jackson's a dick, there are <i>werewolves</i> and Stiles questions how this even became his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Desertion

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm not even sure how this came about. Shit just happens, I suppose. Also, let me mention before you start reading, that this is completely un-beta'd and I wrote it in like...maybe a half an hour? So any mistakes or bad puns are totally my own.
> 
> Title is taken from The Cure's 'The Hungry Ghost'.

The first thing Stiles notices when he comes to, is the pressure of someone gripping his shoulder. It's too tight, vice-like, and he can't help but groan and swat at the hand until the pressure releases and his body curls up further into itself. And he probably seems like a petulant child, bringing his knees up to his chest until he's in the fetal position, low whine slipping from between closed lips, but he can't really bring himself to care.

Every inch of his body is sore, and he can't tell if it's his muscles or his bones that hurt but goddamn _pain_. There's a voice calling his name, and though it's thousands of octaves higher than his father's voice, he mumbles out a rough "five more minutes, dad," because he can't possibly wrap his mind around the fact that someone else, a pretty sounding female someone else, is saying his name when he's in this much pain. But then the hand on his shoulder is back and he's ready to fucking scream because if someone is seriously waking him up right now, they better be well equipped with a heating pad and some Advil or else he's going to dropkick them all the way to mother fucking China.

He whines again, swatting absently into dead air until something clasps his hand and squeezes, and it's then that he allows his eyes to open -- it's a slow process, and the light hitting his retina fucking _burns_ so he has to close them again a couple more times until he's able to withstand the brightness - and a few things occur to him all at once.

Firstly, the someone calling his name is definitely not his father, absolutely female, and decidedly the prettiest thing Stiles has ever laid eyes on. Secondly, he's not in his bedroom. Not even in a room at all because he's _outside_. Thirdly, 'outside' is not his backyard. 'Outside' is under a palm tree, and Stiles can safely say there are none of those in Beacon Hills. 

Despite his protesting muscles -- or bones or whatthefuckever, seriously he just _hurts_ \-- he lurches upwards, whipping his head around to stare blankly at the ocean -- the _ocean_ \-- in complete and total disbelief.

"Stiles." It takes him a few moments to realize that the prettiest girl he's ever seen is no longer clutching him, but she is saying his name again and he wrenches his gaze away from the ocean -- ocean, _seriously_ , what? -- to blink at her, instead. She's smiling, but it isn't quite reaching her eyes and she actually looks uncertain, like she's not one-hundred percent positive he's with her, yet. 

"Yeah," he croaks, and she sighs, relieved. The smile is a bit more genuine now, but there's worry etched into her expression that causes a dull throb of panic to swell in his gut and he's not sure how to deal with that combined with the pain combined with the palm trees and the ocean until -- oh. 

He blinks, leaning around her body until he can see the remains of the yellow life raft sitting along the shoreline, pathetically deflated. Much like his hope.

"Shit," he groans, running a hand over his face as the prettiest girl he's ever seen touches the back of his shoulder gently, and he's hit with the sad realization that she's offering him comfort.

Because they're stranded.

On an island.

It kind of all comes back to him at once: The storm seemingly appearing out of nowhere, the hole in the bow and too much water. He remembers staring helplessly at the other passengers, the small grouping of stupidly rich folk who had hired him to cater their evening boating expedition. He remembers a hand grabbing him and tugging him towards the side of the boat, nearly throwing him overboard where he managed to land safely -- if not a little clumsily -- on the life raft just below. He remembers Allison, his coworker and best friend since the sixth grade, cuddling up against him in the life raft as two other people -- a stunning redhead and a guy with a jawline constructed out of marble -- fell into the raft beside them, and he remembers drifting away from the yacht and the other clumping of rafts as the boat sank with the same dramatic flourish as the Titanic.

He doesn't, however, remember ending up on an island, nor does he remember the names of the prettiest girl he's ever seen or jawline guy, so he must have fallen asleep at some point and he's really stupidly glad they didn't feed him to the fishes as some kind of sacrificial lamb -- or worse, eat him themselves.

"I'm Lydia," the girl offers, apparently seeing the recognition in his eyes. "Jackson and Allison are scouting the area, so I stayed back in case you woke up and thought you were alone."

Part of him realizes that it probably should have been Allison who stayed by his side while Lydia and jawline guy -- correction: Jackson -- went and 'scouted the area', but Allison's kind of outdoors-y and Lydia's the prettiest girl he's ever seen and she seems genuinely concerned about his well-being which is fucking awesome, because that seems like a really good place to start. He grins, lazy and exhausted, and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Cool, thanks."

It's only several moments later that Allison and Jackson come stepping out of the foliage only several feet away, and Allison's grin stretches impossibly wide when she sees Stiles awake. But instead of hugging him and thanking God he's alive, she merely plops down into the sand beside him and curls her hand around his knee, while Jackson takes place behind Lydia and she's leaning into him and, oh, okay. That complicates things a bit.

He tries not to frown as he looks pointedly at Allison, who's definitely pretty, but not as pretty as Lydia and certainly not the person he wants to be making out with in this little foursome. She's talking, though, so it's probably a good thing he's directed his attention towards her, anyway.

"We didn't get around the whole island, but from what we've seen, it's uninhabited." She glances back towards the line of trees behind them, wistful smile curling her lips. "It's beautiful, though. Like one of those islands you see in movies with the cliffs and waterfalls. Definitely not the worst place to end up."

Stiles begs to differ.

The not-worst-place-to-end-up is in his own bed, in Beacon Hills. Where he has a cell phone and friends and there isn't sand in places where sand really shouldn't be; in his opinion, despite beautiful waterfalls and beautiful girls, this is absolutely the worst place to end up. He may never see his dad again. Or his Jeep. Or Call of Duty.

He swallows, tongue darting out to lick along his lips and he realizes, stupidly, that his lips are chapped and he swore he had put Burt's Bees in his pocket before he left the house. It's a ridiculous thought to have now, considering chapstick should be the least of his worries, but it's the only thing he can really focus on right now because it's _normal_. This -- this isn't. 

This is that Tom Hanks movie that made him cry. 

"But basically we're fucked," he laughs, though it's severely lacking in humor and his voice sounds broken and raw even to his own ears. Even Jackson -- who's face literally screams _douchebag_ \-- is looking at him with a kind of understanding pity, because they're all in the same boat.

Or, well, they _were_. At one point.

Until life decided to screw them all in the ass and deposit them in No Man's Land. 

It's Allison's idea to start working on a shelter and figuring out what to do about food, so Jackson and Lydia go off in search of things that seem decently edible, while Stiles and Allison tackle the shelter. And it's not until hours later, when the thing looks decently livable -- it's really a bunch of sticks and palm branches tied together with thick grasses and attached to four or five trees; definitely nothing fancy and they'll probably have to work on something more permanent soon enough -- that Stiles crashes back down into the sand and stares up at the quickly darkening skies, and he prays for the first time since his mother's death. 

He isn't sure what he's praying for, exactly, but the word _home_ comes to the forefront of his mind on multiple occasions, and when Allison comes to lay beside him with her hand slipping seamlessly into his own, she assures him with a gentle squeeze that they'll get there.


	2. Bloody Arrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know, guys. Just.
> 
> I know some people have pet-peeves about the Teen Wolf characters turning into actual ~wolves, and if you're one of those people I sincerely apologize in advance. Personally, I thought it worked better with the tone of this particular story to make it such a way -- and also because it wouldn't exactly work out if they couldn't shift into actual wolves. 
> 
> Plus, let's all take a moment to appreciate actual!wolf Isaac and the heaps of cuddles we would all bestow upon him.
> 
> Also, as a reminder, I don't have a beta, so everything I write insofar has been edited by me alone. That being said, I deeply apologize if this whole chapter is a rambled mess of nonsense. I had a terrible time organizing my thoughts to make anything seem decently coherent. 
> 
> Regardless, I hope you enjoy! :)

There's a decently good chance he's out here solely for Jackson's benefit. Which, okay, he gets it. He _talks_. And some people don't have the patience to listen to his mindless chatter.

Jackson is, apparently, one of those people.

He's pretty sure Lydia's been tuning him out completely, and Allison's just so used to him that she's only ever really half-listening to anything he says. But Jackson? He hadn't stopped complaining about Stiles' mouth from the very moment Stiles had opened it to _breathe_. And, of course, when Stiles finally decided to defend himself against the onslaught of incredibly cruel insults hurled his way, Allison banned him to scavenging duty.

For the past hour, he's been wandering around the island, kicking at tree trunks and singing at the top of his lungs. Startling at the sounds of animals scurrying through the underbrush and cawing back at birds flying overhead. It wasn't until their makeshift shelter was completely out of sight that Stiles realized he left his bow -- because, yeah, Allison _makes those_ , apparently; who knew? -- and there's no chance he was going to turn around and retrieve it after being completely shunned as per Jackson's request. So, with some shred of dignity, he kept on going. Even though he knew he'd be returning without any food.

No rabbit for poor Jackson. How terribly, awfully sad.

It goes without saying that he's feeling a bit bitter, so he wanders for longer than what would be necessary, and he knows he'll have to deal with more of Jackson's bitching -- as well as Lydia's judgmental pout -- that he spent all this time doing absolutely nothing productive. Really though, he can't bring himself to care.

They've been on the island for three days now, and none of them have made any attempt to find out what the other side of the island looks like. Lydia spewed some bullshit about not wanting to stray too far from camp, as they might not be able to find their way back. Even Stiles knows that's a bunch of crap; all it takes is sticking to the coast line. Break through the trees until you hit sand, and have yourself a nice stroll along the beach until you see the raft, and camp is almost perpendicular to that.

So, yeah, in his bitterness at becoming the outcast, he's struck with the sudden burning desire to do a bit of unnecessary exploring.

The forest is a bit more dense on this side, the cover of trees overhead thickening and darkening his path ominously, making it so it's almost impossible to see where he's going, even though it's only around noontime. He can't count how many times he's tripped over a root, and he's fairly certain there's a nice gash running across his cheek from getting hit in the face with a branch, but he has no intention of stopping now. Going back, in some twisted way, feels like the equivalent of admitting defeat. He's not sure what he's trying to overcome, or who he's trying to prove, but he _will_ get to the other side of the island successfully.

It feels like he walks for miles before he can see light up ahead, and it looks like the forest breaks into something of a clearing -- which, awesome, he feels like he's suffocating in this darkness -- but before he can even sigh in relief, a low rumble that sounds ominously like a growl stops him in his tracks. Stiles freezes, ears perked for any new sounds and eyes darting between the trees. There's something _there_ , he can feel it watching him and he's not sure how reassuring it is that something that could make that kind of sound, is hiding in the shadows, but has yet to make a move.

He knows cats like to hunch down low and stalk their prey before pouncing, but he's ninety-nine percent positive that growling didn't come from a fucking _feline_. 

He swallows hard, braces himself for some kind of impact that may or may not be detrimental to his survival when he takes a tentative step backward, freezing again when the growl reverberates around him and echoes through the trees. "Je- _sus_ ," he breathes. Because right in front of him, where nothing but more trees had been twenty seconds ago, stood a wolf. A _wolf_. With blue eyes that seemed to literally glow and illuminate the path below it, crouched in a stance so predatory, so motherfucking _dangerous_ that Stiles couldn't help but vividly imagine all of the ways the wolf was planning on disemboweling him. "Holy -- whoa, okay." 

The beast stalked forward, completely ignoring the way Stiles' hands were _clearly_ up in surrender, muzzle pulling back to expose his teeth in the most terrifying snarl and, seriously, Twilight did not do massive wolves justice. The closer it came, the bigger it grew, and by the time it was nearly toe-to-toe with Stiles, it towered over him so much that he was literally craning his neck upwards to maintain eye-contact with the thing. Because, yeah, he was apparently trying to stare it down. Show it how unafraid he was.

That was a thing, right? Surely.

Truthfully, he was too batshit terrified to mentally run through the 'How to Escape Imminent Death' playbook he had memorized, and even still, he was fairly certain there was nothing in said playbook that accurately described how to weasel one's way out of being a giant wolf's afternoon snack. Mostly because most people -- _sane people_ \-- didn't come face-to-face with over-sized wolves on a regular basis. No, just Stiles. Because the Universe loved him and respected all of his life choices and got its rocks off on challenging him. Really, nothing to worry about. Just a day in the life.

He was too busy internally freaking out to notice the way the beast had stopped growling, its muzzle fully covering its teeth once more, and it was no longer staring at him with a decidedly hungry look in its eyes. If anything, the wolf almost looked intrigued, head cocking to the side adorably, and if the thing wasn't at least six feet tall and four hundred pounds dry, Stiles might compare it to a puppy. Considering the circumstances, and the potential of still being eaten, he wouldn't bother comparing it to anything. Not yet, anyway.

A whine rumbled somewhere within the wolf's chest, a high-pitched sound that had Stiles reeling backwards, arms pinwheeling around him gracefully as he fell back into the dirt. Before he could even get his bearings, the stupidly huge creature was over him, nuzzling over his neck and shoulder, snuffling enthusiastically. His cold, wet nose left a trail of snot in its wake, and since Stiles had basically no self-preservation whatsoever, he groaned in response and started to shove at the wolf's shoulders, kicking lightly at its back legs until the beast got the message and started to retreat. But, no such luck. He was pinned to the underbrush, boxed in beneath four massive paws, completely stunned about the sudden turn of events when a sound from behind him caught both his, and the wolf's attention.

The head above him snapped upwards, another growl running through him and it was instinctive -- because seriously, what is his life? -- to lift up and tangle his fingers in the soft tufts of fur on the wolf's belly, causing the growl to stop and those crazy blue eyes to snap back down to Stiles' face. If he didn't no any better, he'd think the thing looked surprised.

Stiles' lips curled into a grin, fingers uncurling from the fur to lay his palm flat against the wolf's belly, and the beast cocked its head to the side once more. This was good, this was -- 

He didn't really get to think it through much beyond that, when the wolf let out a high pitched whine, and even Stiles could hear the undertone of pain in the sound. "Hey, what -- " but the creature turned, sprinting back into the cover of trees and it was then that Stiles saw the arrow lodged between its shoulder blades. "Allison, what the -- "

"Are you okay?" Suddenly she was there, hands roaming his face and squeezing his cheeks and bunching up his shirt to look at his torso and down over his thighs. He swatted her away, grunting as he pushed himself up onto his elbows but her groping came back full-force as Lydia and Jackson came up beside her. Pleasantly, he realized they both looked a bit shell-shocked, and he kind of wanted to rub it in Jackson's face that he wouldn't even have been out here in the first place if the guy wasn't such a prick. "Stiles, hey. _Stiles_."

His attention snapped back to Allison immediately, curling a hand around her knee to reassure her that, yeah, he was fine. Really fucking confused and potentially suffering from cardiac arrest, but otherwise peachy. "Please tell me you saw that thing. Did you _see_ that thing?"

"I saw it," Allison grinned, but there was still an edge of worry tinting her expression, and Stiles had to force himself to look away from her eyes before he became too weighed down by guilt and started apologizing for something that was most definitely not his fault.

"She _shot_ it," Lydia stated, like it was equal parts gross and fascinating.

It took a little while before Stiles could stand, his legs aching underneath him as he wobbled to his feet, gripping Jackson's shoulder -- much to his obvious disdain -- for support. "It couldn't have wandered far, right?" Jackson scoffed, and Stiles was reminded of why he was even all the way out here in the first place. "It's injured, and if we don't at least try to look for it, it could die."

"That's the point, kid. It'll die whether we look for it or not."

At that, Stiles couldn't help but round on him, wobbling unsteadily as he jabbed an accusatory finger in the middle of his ridiculously sculpted chest. "First off, call me kid again, see what happens. _Secondly_ ," he raised his voice, putting more pressure behind his finger-jab as Jackson opened his mouth with what was, no doubt, something like 'I'd love to see you try something', "I don't care what that looked like, or how much of a righteous prick you are, I'm not going to let that thing die."

"Stiles," Allison cooed, voice angel-soft as her hand pressed into the groove of his back, a gentle pressure between his shoulder blades. "It was going to kill you, I --"

"It wasn't. I mean, maybe at first, but --" He sighed, ignoring Lydia's concerned look over Jackson's shoulder and shrugging off Allison's touch, rolling his shoulders backwards as he stepped away from them. "Look, if it's -- if it's still alive, we have to help it. If not, then..."

"Dinner," Jackson snorted, folding his arms over his chest.

Seriously, if Stiles wasn't such a stand-up kind of guy, and currently in heavy lust with this asshole's girlfriend, he would have already punched his perfectly flawless jaw. "Sure," he rolled his eyes. 

With that, he spun on his heels, taking a moment to figure out which direction he was facing before following the path the wolf had taken. It wasn't hard to track it, what with the blood trail and the off-kilter pattern of footprints. His own steps were determined, his pace rivaling on anxious as he stomped over the forest floor, knocking branches out of the way and barely feeling any new scrapes on his arms in the process. Allison was hot on his heels, used to this kind of terrain from camping and hunting with her father, whereas Jackson and Lydia trailed behind a bit, the former of the two complaining the entire way.

When the day came that he would never have to see Jackson ever again, it would be too soon.

However, all thoughts of the obvious anger management he was currently in desperate need of flew out the window when they reached their goal. There was a pool of blood and drag marks just up ahead, leading into a cover of bushes, as if the wolf grew too tired to walk but tried to pull itself into hiding for fear of being found. A pang of sadness resonated in Stiles' gut, and he immediately hastened his pace, suddenly desperate to know if the weirdly compassionate creature was alive.

However, it wasn't the extensive amount of blood that had him reeling backwards with a squawk upon reaching the shrubbery. Nor was it the fact that the creature was, in fact, alive.

No. What had his chest aching and his heart pounding and mouth flopping open and closed uselessly was the very fact that the wounded creature wasn't much of a creature at all. There was no injured wolf in sight; in its place lay a man, nude and shivering with an arrow embedded between his shoulder blades, unconscious but curled in upon himself, nearly hugging his knees in the fetal position. " _Allison_ ," he shrieked, hand flying up to cover his own mouth. "You shot -- this is -- a human!"

Twin looks of disbelief fluttered over the trio's faces as Allison scurried forward, ducking her head to get a better look into the grouping of shrubs, shrieking softly as she dove beneath the cover, hands hovering over the man's bare flesh. "That's impossible! I could have sworn -- it was a _wolf_ , Stiles. I shot the _wolf_."

Stiles felt highly inclined to point out the obvious fact that, no, she hadn't. But he held back his smart remark and, instead, ordered Jackson to put his muscles to good work for once -- which earned him the scowl of the century -- and the guy actually listened, gently scooping the injured man up into his arms and taking great caution not to jostle him too much as they maneuvered their way back through the dense forestation, Lydia ahead of the rest with hopes of preparing a makeshift bed for the newcomer.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As it turns out, now that Stiles is close enough to get a good look at the guy, he's moderately attractive.

And by moderately attractive, he means devastatingly good looking.

He's all sharp features and hard lines, naturally handsome in ways Abercrombie models could never be. Which, okay, Stiles sometimes wastes time ogling the pictures as he picks aimlessly through the clothes, and maybe he uses the clothes as an excuse to ogle the pictures because he's not much of an Abercrombie clothing fan. But the men? Them he could get behind. 

Literally.

The fact of the matter is, the guy currently bleeding out onto Stiles' suit jacket is beautiful in ways he'd never thought possible, and he kind of hates the fact that he's going to be the first face the guy sees when he wakes up, as that automatically makes him the person Hot Guy is going to want to strangle for inflicting such pain upon him. Allison's the person he _should_ be mad at, but she's far too precious to feel any kind of real anger for and, as her best friend and partner in crime, Stiles will naturally take the blame for this incident because she's a _girl_ , and he knows better than to pawn things off on a girl.

Even if it was her fault.

He's _just_ managed to stop the bleeding and use Jackson's crisp white dress shirt -- which he so _dutifully_ offered up like the fucking angelic, shirtless saint he is -- as a makeshift bandage of sort when the guy stirs beneath Stiles' fingers, effectively stilling him. He groans, goes for broke and tries to push himself up off the sand immediately, but Stiles stops him with a hurried, "whoa whoa _whoa_ , slow down there cowboy," and he's flopping back down into the sand with a grunt.

Stiles swallows, fingers hovering over the dressed wound with a sympathetic wince as Hot Guy blinks blearily up at him, brows furrowed in a way that makes him look both menacing and sexy all in one go. "Who're you?" 

And, okay, his voice is gruff but not deep and it makes something stir in Stiles' pants. It's really not the time to pop a woody, so he tries his best to pretend that the guy isn't naked and stupidly attractive and going to be starring in whatever sexual fantasy Stiles' will definitely be having later tonight. "Name's Stiles, but you can probably just call me Doc." He grins, but Hot Guy just levels him with a stare that could wilt flowers and frighten a kitten into a tree, so it fades rather quickly and he swallows again. "Your turn."

He doesn't get an answer. What he _does_ get is an impeccable view of rippling muscles and Hot Guy biting into his lower lip as he, once again, pushes himself upwards. The guy doesn't take the time to heed Stiles' warning this time, even going as far as untying the dress shirt from around his chest and flinging it in Stiles' general direction. Without even a thank you, he stalks off in the direction of the trees, leaving Stiles to gape after him and his seemingly uninjured back with complete and utter befuddlement.

By the time he's hit with a witty remark to throw at the guy's retreating figure, he's already long gone, and it occurs to him that the sun has begun setting over the horizon and he's been sitting there for over a good hour, bewildered enough not to notice the time passing or the fact that his companions have returned and started on cooking dinner. It isn't until Lydia asks him where the injured guy is, that Stiles realizes he hadn't been injured when he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also hi, I'm Maggie and if you're reading this, I love you so.


End file.
